Course description
Starting from the premises that globalization is a long-lasting process that, with diverse intensity and scope, tends to connect into single webs of commercial, social, cultural and political relations different parts of the world, the course addresses the crucial issue of its impact on key parameters of social wellbeing as material welfare, human rights, political dominance and freedom. Emphasis is placed on the relation between economic and human development across the world; on the possibility of coexistence of different options and paths for enhancing social welfare and boosting development; on the relation between politics and human development at global scale; on the potentialities of new global economic models, as green or blue economy, for insuring welfare and limit environmental damage.

Teaching methodology
The course is structured on a first, on-line or blended course presentation, on lectures, in class discussion of case studies promoting comparative approaches between diverse cultural contexts, as well as a global vision of common problems and questions. Students will interact with the teacher and among them posting comments, answering to questions and polls through “wooclap” platform, and presenting in the classroom a final paper freely chosen among the topics related to the program.

The course juxtaposes diachronic analysis (A) and case studies on specific issues and problems (B).

A1. Monarchy, Mercantilism and the First Globalization: The Roots of the Western World Hegemony
B1. Enlightenment, liberalism and slavery – Losurdo’s “Liberalism a Counter-History” and de Oliveira’s “Christopher Columbus – The Enigma”
B2. Mediterranean entanglements: France and the Ottoman Empire during the “long Eighteen Century”
B3. Work Relations and Wealth concentration: Artisans, Merchants and Manufactures in the Venetian Republic
B4. The “monocultural plantation” as global business model: from Martinique’s sugar to Ghana’s cacao beans

A2. Liberalism as a Paradigm of the Second Globalization: Democracy, Economic Growth, and Great Divergence
B1. The opium wars as a paradigm: trade, politics, military intervention, unequal relations
B2. Serving the machine: the human and environmental price of the industrial Revolutions
B3. Exchanging misery with misery: Veneto migrants in late XIX century Brazil
B4. The other Belle Epoque: workers’ conditions, political tensions and revolutionary attempts in Italy and Russia at the edge – Monicelli’s “The Organizer”

A3. Interrupted Globalization: Competition and Coexistence in the World System between the Russian Revolution and the End of Keynesianism
B1. Modernization Attempts at the Root of the Russian Revolution: Witte, Stolypin and Lenin
B2. Building the “city of work”: Ekaterinburg (Russia) and Marghera (Italy) as monofunctional urban paradigms -
B3. New Consumes, New Societies: the three lives of the Fiat 500
B4. The Twilight of Soviet Socialism: Vladimir Popov’s and Andrei Yurchak’s interpretations
B5. The Twilight of Western style “heavy industrialization” – Bettin’s Petrolkimico

A4. In Search of a New World: Neoliberalism, Communication Revolutions, the Third Globalisation and the Great Convergence
B1. Primitive Capital Accumulation: The 1990s in the former Soviet Union and in the West
B2. Tentative “from below”: Emergency, Slow Food, and Longo Mai B3. The Environment Question: From Aurelio Peccei to Gunter Pauli
B4. The Democracy Question: Roots and Outcomes of the “yellow vests” movement B5. The Governance Question: Learning from the Pandemic

Teaching methods
The course combines the following teaching methods:
- Front lecturing in order to give the students the analytical instruments and theoretical framework to understand development processes and link them in time and space;
- Discussion with peer, in order to promote independent thinking, strengthen to ability to back and question one’s interpretations, and promote the capacity of dialogue on the course’s topics (every lecture will sustain free interaction between teacher and students on topics related to the course, also exploiting interactive platforms as wooclap);
- Group work on given topics (every lecture will dedicate a space for group work and discussion)
- Personal work on chosen topics approved by the teacher, presentation of it in the classroom and open discussion with peers, in order to strength the ability of data collection, analysis, synthesis, exposition, and discussion with peers;

All the slides and the eventual documents presented and discussed during the lectures, as well as that used during the fieldwork, will be placed in the University’s moodle platform and for easier access.

Learning material will include slides, articles and other written documents, iconography (photos and pictures), documentary and fiction films.

Learning Outcomes of the course
Students will acquire the knowledge necessary to understand and critically analyze the successive “ways” of globalization in their economic, social, and cultural aspects by placing them within a diachronic and comparative framework and relating them with their medium and long-term social effects.
At the end of the course students will be able to:
1) Fully understand, critically analyze and clearly present the concepts and the literature discussed in the classroom;
2) Critically and comparative analyse globalization waves, juxtaposition different disciplinary approaches (economics, history, arts, architecture and urban planning) and connecting them with core social issues as human rights, democracy, poverty, access to basic services,…;
3) Question globalisations’ results, relating them to specific times and spaces, cultures and traditions;
4) Prepare, and effectively present in the classroom a topic related to the globalization issues freely chosen by the student.

Teaching and Evaluation Methods (percentage of overall grade assigned to each evaluation)
Evaluation is based on the following parameters:
1. Final oral exam (60 %)
2. Personal dissertation and its presentation in the classroom (20%)
3. Group work (10%)

The final exam is based on the following material:
a. Slides presented and discussed during the lectures and uploaded on the Moodle platform;
b. One of the following articles freely chosen by the student:
1. David Harvey, Neoliberalism as creative destruction (http://cult320withallison.onmason.com/files/2014/12/Harvey_Creative-Destruction.pdf)
2. Alexei Yurchak, Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything was forever, until it was no more, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 45, 3, 2003, pp. 480-510 (uploaded on the moodle platform)
3. David Celetti, Trends in a transition economy: Kazakhstan’s monetary policy after independence (https://doc-research.org/2019/06/trends-in-a-transition-economy-kazakhstans- monetary-policy-after-independence/)
4. Vladimir Popov (and others) The effect of rapid privatisation on mortality in mono-industrial towns in post-Soviet Russia: a retrospective cohort study, The Lancet Public Health, 2, 5, 2017 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316041955_The_effect_of_rapid_privatisation_on_m ortality_in_mono-industrial_towns_in_post-Soviet_Russia_a_retrospective_cohort_study)
5. Vladimir Popov, Which economic model is more competitive? The West and the South after the Covid-19 pandemic (https://doc-research.org/2020/09/which-economic-model-is-more- competitive-the-west-and-the-south-after-the-covid-19-pandemic/)

Further Bibliography
- Atkinson B., Piketty T. (eds), Top Incomes: A Global Perspective, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010
- Arrighi G., Adam Smith in Beijing. Lineages of the 21st century, Verso, London, 2007
- Calic M.J (et alii eds), The Crisis of Socialist Modernity, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Goettingen, 2011
- Celetti D., French Residents and Ottoman Women in 18th Century Levant: Personal Relations, Social Control and Cultural Interchange, in Constanta Vintila-Ghitulescu, Women, Consumption, and the Circulation of Ideas in South – Eastern Europe, 17th-19th Centuries, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2018, pp. 47-64.
- Celetti D. French Residents in Ottoman Crete: Trade, Diplomacy and Daily Life in the Early Eighteenth Century, “Rivista Istorica”, XXIX, 2018, p. 75-103.
- Celetti D., France in the Levant: Trade and Immaterial Circulations in the “Long Eighteenth Century, “Journal of Early Modern History”, 2020, pp. 1-24
- Chakrabarty D., Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2009
- Gunder Frank A., ReOrient. Global Economy in the Asian Age, Los Angeles, University of California Press,1998
- Losurdo D., Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism, “International Critical Thought”, 7, 1, 2017, pp. 15-31.
- Losurdo D., Class Struggle: a Political and Philosophical History, Palgrave Mac Millan, New York, 2016
- Losurdo D., War and Revolution. Rethinking the 20th Century, Verso, 2015.
- Losurdo D., Liberalism: a counter-history, Verso,, 2014.
- Piketty T., Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014.
- Piketty T., Capital and Ideology, Harvard University Press, 2020.
- Rist G., The History of Development from Western Origins to Global Faith, London, Zed Books, 2003.
- Popov V., (ed.), When Lifes Expectancy is Falling: Mortality Crisis in Post-Communist Countries in a Global Context, Nova Publisher, 2020
- Popov V., Jomo K.S., “Are Developing Countries Catching Up?”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 42 (2018), 33-46 (http://pages.nes.ru/vpopov/).
- Popov V., Transformational Recession, in M. Alexeev, S. Weber (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy, Oxford University Press, 2013 (http://pages.nes.ru/vpopov/).
- Popov V., Can Uzbekistan Economy Retain Its High Growth Rate? Scenarios of Economic Development in 2015-30, “PONARS Eurasia working paper”, December 2014 (http://pages.nes.ru/vpopov/).
- Popov V., Russia: austerity and deficit reduction in historical and comparative perspective", Cambridge Journal of Economics", 36, 2012, pp. 313-334.
- Popov V., The Russian and Chinese Transition in a Wider Perspective, in W. G. W. Kolodko,
J. Tomkiewicz (eds), 20 years of Transformation: Achievements, Problems and Perspectives
Nova Publishers, 2011 (http://pages.nes.ru/vpopov/).
- Stanziani A., Eurocentrism and the Politics of Global History, Palgrave Mac Millan, Londres, 2018, 153 p.
- Stanziani A., Rules of Exchange. French Capitalism in Comparative Perspective, Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, 315 p.
- Stanziani A., Sailors, Slaves and Immigrants. Bondage in the Indian Ocean World, 1750-1914, Palgrave Mac Millan, 2014, 196 p.
- Turchin P., Figuring out the past: 3495 vital statistics that Explain Wolrd History, Public Accairs, New York, 2020
- Turchin P., Nefedov S., Secular cycles, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2009
- Turchin P., War, Peace and War: the Life Cycles of Imperial Nations, Pi Press London, London, 2006.

Last updated: March 17, 2023